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lapacho and green tea leaf tea with all grain cooking without fructose or honey (no sugar), fruit or something a veggies juice (mix whatever you like)

almost all the time raw uses of vegetable(get a nice knife and cut everythin in small pieces. For a menu change a quick sauteč of harder vegetables with clarified butter (ghee) at low temperature, with pure dark salt or himalaya salt which We have seasoned in a jar with fresh aromatic herbs, like oregano, sage,marjoram and rosemary. You can stir them with some rice (I make extra and put it on the side)

We have almost eliminated all kind of meat. When possible fresh local fish, sardines, anchiovies, tuna, mackerel, salmon. We use very little chicken, especially beef.. We are trying rabbit now, but still very little. You can get all amminoacids from the legumes.

We forgot to tell that in the salads I put almonds and brasilian nuts (cystein and selenium) and in the soups for the winter, miso and wheatgerm.

Stay away from white flour , use all wheat, kamut, and all different type of all wheat flour to make when possible your own bread or cookies (use honey). 1/2 glass of red wine is good for you. No sodas, no arificial juices, no pure alcool....Lots of pure water....and everything else with moderation...sometime we splurge and have something "traditional" and its fun

We have made a change in our lifestyle to make our immunesysten stronger...and we are feeling better.

The are people who believe in one God, everyone calls him a different name, every human makes him to say and do whatever they want for their selfish use,War included.

I believe only that this planet in the beginning was the Paradise and that We, the humans "Believers", are slowly turning it into a pure Hell! God help us and the future generations.

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You may deceive all the people part of the time, and part of the people all the time, but not all the people all the time. Abraham Lincoln

it's great to hear your experiences and ideas!i don't take meds and am trying to avoid it for as long as possible. no meat, no dairy, no eggs..after reading about raw foods, it makes no sense to me to eat anything cooked, it just doesn't seem natural. what animal cooks their food, you know?i've been mostly raw for the past 7 months, all raw the last month and a half. before getting my first labs, my lifestyle was kinda crappy to be honest. drank too much, no real goals, scattered...so hoping getting my priorities straight, some direction and eating real live food, i'll do alright. as far as what im eating.. leafy greens blended with fruit, sprouted wheatberries w/dates or apples, salads (with a variety of veggies), a lot of sprouts, green soup on occasion. fruits, seeds and raw nut butters.would love to hear how others are doing on a raw vegan diet.

I make a kefir smoothie for breakfast every day. Organic milk kefir (made fresh every 24 hours from my own grains), banana, whey protein, and a mix of different fruits depending on my preference for that day.

I eat huge salads with spinach and all types of various veggies, again, depending on what is in the fridge. I do lots of black beans and brown rice, different fish, and have been getting into making my own sushi! Quite a bit of fun.

In the afternoons, I drink my daily kombucha, again, made from my own culture once a week. Trying to see if my supplements and probiotics will help my numbers next draw. No meds yet here, either.

I feel lighter and more energetic than in times past...the newish diet, plus a return to the gym, I would imagine.

I haven't gone to a fully raw diet yet...and not sure I will ever. But kudos to those that can do it! I plan on growing my own veggies someday once I move and get a house or duplex with some green space...

Kudos, again!~!?~

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"Don't ask yourself what the world needs.Ask yourself what makes you come alive, and then go and do that.Because what the world needs is people who have come alive."

bryon, please talk to a certified nutritionist who will consider your current status and advise. Raw vegan diets aren't often recommended even for "healthy" people. I highly doubt your doctor or a nutritionist will recommend such a diet.

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“From each, according to his ability; to each, according to his need” 1875 K Marx

raw vegan diets are fine for everyone. studies aren't typically done showing the immense nutrition in leafy green veggies, a vital part of a healthy diet. variety is important too, along with incorporating as many organics as possible. as much as i don't like supplements, i will take the organic chlorellas, spirulinas, etc. being that the soil used for growing veggies today is nothing like the nutrient rich soil from long ago, i have to get the micro nutrients from somewhere...anyway, got lab results a couple days ago. cd4 up and viral load down. i am happy as hell!a word about dairy from the other post - dairy is terrible!! i don't mean to come down on what you're doing, but i think for our bodies, to work at the top of their game need to be provided their natural diet in its natural form. drinking secretions from another animal just doesn't seem natural to me. i hope you find what works for you too!

it's great to hear your experiences and ideas!i don't take meds and am trying to avoid it for as long as possible. no meat, no dairy, no eggs..after reading about raw foods, it makes no sense to me to eat anything cooked, it just doesn't seem natural. what animal cooks their food, you know?

What other animal has almost doubled their life expectancy rate after only a 100 years. Half of the children born in developed countries in 2009 can expect to live till 100.

What other animal purifies it's drinking water to eliminate waterborne illness such as e. coli and dysentery.

What animal has developed techniques to take a heart from a dying person and transfer it to an ill person in the hope the later can live a longer life.

What other animals has developed life saving drugs to benefit others and decrease morality in the afflicted.

I know you were asking a rhetorical question but i just felt the need to point out your non sequitur fallacy. I support people who attempt a healthier lifestyle, but just because it's raw or organic doesn't mean it's healthy. Just because other animals do it, and it's "natural" does not mean it's beneficial.

ByronmaxIf you are so sure raw vegan diets are fine for anyone, why did you post the question?

I think your choices are based on emotions and politics and heresay. I would be very interested to see any published verification by either a HIV specialising MD or a certified nutritionist that a raw vegan diet is "fine" for any HIV positive person.

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“From each, according to his ability; to each, according to his need” 1875 K Marx

What other animal has almost doubled their life expectancy rate after only a 100 years. Half of the children born in developed countries in 2009 can expect to live till 100.

What other animal purifies it's drinking water to eliminate waterborne illness such as e. coli and dysentery.

What animal has developed techniques to take a heart from a dying person and transfer it to an ill person in the hope the later can live a longer life.

What other animals has developed life saving drugs to benefit others and decrease morality in the afflicted.

I know you were asking a rhetorical question but i just felt the need to point out your non sequitur fallacy. I support people who attempt a healthier lifestyle, but just because it's raw or organic doesn't mean it's healthy. Just because other animals do it, and it's "natural" does not mean it's beneficial.

Good luck on your journey.

not sure if i'm doing this right - regarding this post above.

i think we've come to need to clean our water and seek medical attention because of what we've done to the earth. if animals hadn't been domesticated to be eaten, we would not have influenzas. or e-coli in our water.had we eaten well from the start, we would not need any organ to be replaced. sure docs are good for some stuff but there is health info sorely neglected in terms of preventative care.i don't mind being the guinea pig in what i'm doing.

and as to why i posted - to answer another post - i wanted to know if someone else had been on this path also. just looking for a supportive online pal i suppose.

oh yeah, my nutritionist is on board with this as well. but honestly, no matter what she says, i will do this anyway. my numbers are getting better. that's enough for me.suppose this might not be the forum to find another raw vegan, at least not yet.

Further proof that your choices are based on emotions and politics and unscientific theories. There are good ideas in a raw food diet but there are also many dangers.

Is your nutritionist a registered licensed professional?

It would be highly unusual to recommend such a diet to people with compromised immune systems. It takes extreme rigor to avoid dangers in such a diet, thought it is certainly possible, it is hardly the golden highway to health.

I had a bf by the way who drank his piss to cure his AIDS in the 80s. Didn't work.

God bless and good luck, I do wish you well with the raw vegan diet. Its a big lifestyle choice.

I hope you find others doing the same here. Perhaps also keep your eyes open at the local food coop or other local places where people on vegan diets might congregate. I think you might find some other HIV+ people doing variants of your choice.

Well-balanced, natural whole foods are what I would go for, plus champagne and poppers too. But then, I am on HAART and the HAART has controlled my HIV.. As a former lacto-ovo diet fetishist, I don't think extremely constricting regimes have much to do with health, and a lot to do with control, spirit, politics, etc.

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“From each, according to his ability; to each, according to his need” 1875 K Marx

Oh, also, I do concur oddly that there is a energy, or metaphysical, or spiritual element to HIV transmission and HIV progression. There is absolutely no science to this --- of course not.

When I seroconverted, I thought it would be cool to look up all the bizarre theories as to how and why of HIV.

There was one theory that i found on the Internet, an African witch doctor was convinced that HIV was the monkey spirit, angry that the jungles had been destroyed. He said he could see angry monkeys sitting on the shoulders of HIV+ people. This fits in with your ideas about how we destroy the environment and it lashes back at humans.

Also, the Australian Koala's are being decimated by an HIV like virus. Environment out of whack?

But from such bizarre esoteric theories to science is a leap. You may in fact be naturally a controller of HIV. Even if you went out and ate McDo for a month. But if the eating of McDo makes you upset, then of course your system could show it.

What science says, and proves, is that you can be the most morally repugnant person in your city, a meat eating donut loving hedonist, alcoholic, a thief, depressed, manic, a Republican and a bible-banger, lover of the color mauve, but if you have 100 adherence to the right HAART, your HIV will be controlled. End of story. Nothing spirtual whatsoever.

« Last Edit: October 08, 2009, 05:00:51 PM by mecch »

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“From each, according to his ability; to each, according to his need” 1875 K Marx

i'm a complete atheist, no spiritual decisions whatsoever.. and i agree that initially i became vegan for ethical/emotional reasons. but raw makes the most sense. why would destroying something with heat make it better for you?

and drinking pee would just be a fad. how can returning to natural eating be a fad when it's what your body evolved to ingest? i'm talking before fire.. berry pickers, gatherers. does anyone really look at a chicken walking on the grass and get the urge to tear into it with their teeth? i don't think so. doesn't make sense. that's all i'm saying.

studies in raw food will most likely never make headlines without a doc in a labcoat spouting how useless or bad for you it is. but then again docs get very little education in nutrition. they can cut up and drug you but what money is there in prevention?

the pharma co's have too much invested. and likely will postpone a cure to continue to make money.

and if i'm wrong and get sick, i will jump on the meds bandwagon. i may be passionate, but not totally foolish.

thanks for sharing your thoughts and opinions. i do wish you well too!

...is that you can be the most morally repugnant person in your city, a meat eating donut loving hedonist, alcoholic, a thief, depressed, manic, a Republican and a bible-banger, lover of the color mauve...

how can returning to natural eating be a fad when it's what your body evolved to ingest? i'm talking before fire.. berry pickers, gatherers. does anyone really look at a chicken walking on the grass and get the urge to tear into it with their teeth? i don't think so. doesn't make sense. that's all i'm saying.

So your thesis would be that in the 20,000 years or so that are a conservative estimate of how long humans have been cooking there was no evolutionary pressure that favored cooking? 100,000 generations?

Sorta odd that cooking is so widespread in that case.

And what about evolution by other organisms, such as E. coli?

Please do talk to a nutritionist -- HIV is a serious life-threatening illness with no cure; it changes your state of health dramatically. Please take care of yourself.

i thinking cooking stuck for a couple reasons. 1 idea is that as people migrated into colder climates, or as colder climates found them, they found that freezing food preserved it. then they had to thaw it/cook it. that's just a guess. and makes sense they made the most of it, not to mention it tastes fantastic when it's cooked. doesn't mean it's best for our bodies. we're the only animals that cooks our food. we are also the most diseased.i am dealing with a certified nutritionist. my tcells have gone up and viral load has gone down since doing this, along with other healthy behaviors. if i'm wrong i'll take the drugs

my tcells have gone up and viral load has gone down since doing this, along with other healthy behaviors. if i'm wrong i'll take the drugs

Correlation does not imply causation, just like when I credit poppers and ciggies for my 1300 cd4 count.

By the way, I'm like WAY into healthy eating but just not like in the way you are or that extreme. If it works for you then great, but I'm glad you reiterated that you'll take meds if you need to at some point in time, just do not wait to do it when you get ghastly ill like you said in a previous post (my words, not yours exactly). Do you have some magic cd4 cut off to go on meds or are you really only going on them when actually sick (meaning PCP or some type of OI I would assume)? I'd highly advise not waiting that long.

no, no cut off tcell count, just gonna keep this up and see how it goes. i think the fact that so many of our diseases are related to diet, ie cancers, heart disease, stroke, etc., and since they can be cure/prevented via a healthy raw vegan diet (i've done a ton of reading and research), exercise and avoiding acidic foods/drinks. cancer cannot survive in this alkaline environment. since cancer, heart disease, etc are on the rise and the american diet has just gotten worse, i cannot help but see a correlation. i'm willing to take the risk of getting sick. if i die, then i die doing something i believe in. but like i say, i'll pump myself full of drugs to avoid that (if it comes to it).

Well, have fun ending up in a hospital. Personally I think you might benefit from channeling some of that "research" time into what happens with your body once it dips to 10 t-cells, but I guess you'll learn by experience one day. But hey, it's your body not mine right?

Do you also not wash your food? Only asking since your argument seems to rely heavily on what other species do (and I carnt think of many creatures who take this step before ingesting anything).

Being a vegan is great and all --as long as you have a good balance nutrient-wise, but the whole "raw" thing seems a bit risky, especially if a compromised immune system is part of the equation. Bacteria happens.

Just keep an eye on that VL. Science will eventually be there for you if needed.

Wishing you well.

m.

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"I have tried hard--but life is difficult, and I am a very useless person. I can hardly be said to have an independent existence. I was just a screw or a cog in the great machine I called life, and when I dropped out of it I found I was of no use anywhere else."

sure, i wash my food. things are very different today, pesticides, herbicides..i think my diet is more diverse than a typical vegan. though all of us are missing out on the hundreds, maybe thousands of plant species that used to be available (due to choicey agriculture).i still think it's bizarre that anyone thinks eating raw is a health risk! our body is "made" to ingest food in its natural state. cooking is bizarre (killing the food, essentially), though its history, how it came to exist and why people want to hang on to it all make sense. still, animals aren't cooking and they're way better off than we are, until we cook their food (ie. store bought pet food, etc). i mean if you really think about it...i know no one wants to give up fries, chips, burgers, pizzas.. it's not like i don't miss it!

You need to jump off the "raw" (no pun attended espcially in a poz forum) bandwagon, and stop propagandizing yourself. You're stuck in a communication loop with yourself. You're looking for research that supports your opinion, which rationalizes your reasoning, but it not congruent with modern thinking. Your arguments are illogical.

A. How do you know animals are way better off than we are? What reasoning do you have to support that hypothesis, and how are you sure that their advantage over humans is correlated to their eating habits.

B. Secondly, do you think the rise in health problems may be due to the rise in life expectancy? If you're only expected to live 40-50 year (that's the life expectancy in mid 19th century), then your less likely to experience certain diseases. Remember the risk of heart disease rises after you get older, and the greater risk of that disease is past the life expectancy age of the 18th century. It's well documented medically, that the rise in certain diseases is correlated with fact more people are living longer to experience these diseases, and to discover new ones. Cancer was document in ancient Egyptians around 3000BC and scientists have found fossils of Homo erectus that were killed because of cancer.

Not trying to be mean, if you are truly basing your decision on research logical thinking, i do not believe you are done with the process. Either that or you need to change your arguments because they aren't sound.

I don't think you've researched the negatives on a raw food diet. Only the positives. You have personal subjective explanations around the negatives. If you'd open your eyes to the full story, you might see that cooking makes a lot of things life sustaining. its one of the reasons there are human all over the world in every climate, for example. And today, its the same story. Couldn't even eat a lot of stuff without cooking. Other stuff you can eat raw becomes more nutritious. Many vegetables available in their season, locally, have to be cooked!

Cooking is "healthy". Just as simply chewing all food well is healthy. How many carnivores in nature must chew??

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“From each, according to his ability; to each, according to his need” 1875 K Marx

not saying that disease was unheard of back in the day but the egyptians were also cooking their food.. i've only read that animals are healthier in the wild, unless of course they encounter pollution from us.i'm sure there are contributing factors to health overall. but it simply will never make sense to me that cooked food is better. i doubt there will ever be mainstream "positive" coverage of raw food. it will be under the new age umbrella and be scoffed at. i'm not new age or spiritual, i'm just doing what seems to make the most sense. if i appear to be "propagandizing" myself it's only because i wasn't ready for all the negative reaction from people. got a bit defensive. in my original post, i'd only wanted to know of others who've had experience with this path. i suppose you're trying to be helpful, and i appreciate that. like i say, pharma co's will lose too much money and people don't want to give up cooked food. with all i've learned about the FDA and how this country actually works in regards to the health of its people, right now i just don't believe in any studies huge companies pay for and market.unless i get sick, then i will be a huge hypocrite and take meds.

Hey I was a vegetarian and ate macrobiotic for years until I had a bout of wasting in the early 90's. I still eat pretty healthy as my triglycerides soared to 6000 and cholesterol 594 during my stint on Reyataz/Norvir and Truvada. now that I've switched, everything is fine.

Everyones body biological makeup is different. What works for one person may not work for another. I know people that are on a raw food macrobiotic diet and it works wonders I don't ever see them sick they encompass health in all aspects of the definition. I think it can work you just have to be very prudent about your food selections and make sure that you are receiving enough protein. I wish you well on your quest and am looking forward to your updates!

This thread was actually the first one I read when I discovered the poz.com forums about a week ago, and having a lot to say and not enough time in which to say it, I let it go until now.

For one thing, although, as you will see, I am not a fan of all-raw veganism at all, I nevertheless feel a certain solidarity with you as I too am trying to remove junk from my life and to utilize a "live" food diet to remain healthy; I simply have a broader range of foods I consider "live".

I have very similar ideas to yours about medicine, and I too recoil in disgust at many of the things man has done to this planet and its inhabitants.

And in fact I suspect that a raw food diet is a good thing for you at this moment. For one thing, anything is better than the standard american diet. For another, fasting and cleansing has always been known to be a wholesome thing, and eating only raw vegan foods is a good way of doing that. In fact, one writer I was recently looking at discussed a cycle through which our bodies pass with three stages: cleansing, rebuilding, and sustaining. A raw foods diet would be a great way to pass through the cleansing stage. Since you mentioned eating a "crappy" diet before, this was perhaps a good transition out of that.

Finally, most of the vitamins and minerals which such a diet lacks are fat-soluble and therefore are stored in the body for long periods: that is why it is possible to fast for a while without having any adverse reactions. But eventually, if we don't get something like B12 for a long enough period, we shall have some problems. That's why people who go on something like macrobiotics tend to start out well but develop problems down the road.

But first I want to notice a few of the early responses in this thread, before it took its "negative" turn.

First, Weasel wrote about eating bison and fish and red wine, about no longer using the microwave (bravo!) and not eating any sugar at all (double bravo!) I admire this, Weasel, and have done similar things myself.

Then living63 gave a very detailed (and very appetizing!) description of what sounds to me like a great diet, although I personally love meat.

Finally, renevatio described what also sounds like a great diet, including making his own kefir (Great!) and his own kombucha (excellent!)

So, we already have a little group of people who, without being the same in every respect, share a basic orientation towards "real food" diets, a similar passion for good food, and a similar concern for health. At that point the conversation could have blossomed out into a very positive direction.

I am mentioning all of this because I felt very sad when you complained that you weren't "ready for all the negative reaction from people." But I feel compelled to point out that,without surely meaning to do it, the one who introduced the negativity into this discussion was you yourself. In response to renevatio, you wrote:

"a word about dairy from the other post - dairy is terrible!! i don't mean to come down on what you're doing, but i think for our bodies, to work at the top of their game need to be provided their natural diet in its natural form. drinking secretions from another animal just doesn't seem natural to me."

Notice how, after that, there were no further responses from anyone describing their own adventures in healthy eating? We were all terrified of your ex cathedra judgements; the stream of conversation was frozen.

Now, I was immensely saddened when reading this. Maybe you yourself don't like milk, and don't see any of the poetry or beauty in it. Very possibly you've never even had real milk and don't know what it is. But milk is a holy food all over the world. It is the river of life. All over Europe the quintessential image of homely bliss is someone milking a cow or carrying the milk back home. In India the cow is revered because of the milk and butter that she gives. When the Dalai Lama was asked what, in exile, he most missed about Tibet, he replied "Yaks", which, besides their meat, are valued for their milk. Tea with yak butter is the main beverage of the Tibetans. There are many African cultures in which milk is a staple. When God Himself wanted to describe the Holy Land to Moses he called it a land "flowing with milk and honey" (notice that you get two "animal secretions" for the price of one!). We don't have to like something or agree with it simply because it is traditional, but I think we do have to show it some respect. When millions of people all over the world have loved milk, it just seems crude to me to declare without ceremony, that "dairy is terrible." And, on a more personal note, milk is something that renevatio loves and that I love and that many people here love. It was a little unpleasant to hear you just say "dairy is terrible!" in that way and make fun of it as "animal secretions".

I think a lot of the opinions to which we gravitate, when we consider diet as well as weightier things, is whether we are, by temperament, inclined to consider the traditions of the world as an argument in favor of something, or against it. I think that if a practice has been maintained for generations there is probably some strong reason behind it. The fact that no community that I know of, in the whole world, and in all of history, has ever been vegan or all-raw, is, for me, a pretty strong argument against all-raw veganism. But to someone of a different temperament, that might actually make it attractive.

I would like to consider some of the arguments you have used. Before I start, though, I am aware that two different things are being considered together here: one is veganism, the other "raw-ism". They do not, of course, necessarily go together. Macrobiotic eaters are largely vegan but eat almost everything cooked; Esquimaux eat most of their food raw but it's all meat. (I'd prefer the latter myself.)

First, then, I'm struck by the degree to which your raw-veganism comes from subjective emotional attitudes towards food. You write:

"it makes no sense to me to eat anything cooked, it just doesn't seem natural. what animal cooks their food, you know?"

and

"drinking secretions from another animal just doesn't seem natural to me."

and

"but raw makes the most sense. why would destroying something with heat make it better for you?"

and

"we're the only animals that cooks our food. we are also the most diseased."

Now, what I see in all of this is an emotional desire to return to nature, to be like all the other animals, and to undo the diseases of civilisation. Others have already pointed out the differences between mankind and the other animals; I'd like to point out one more. We are also the only only animals who make choices about our foods. In a supreme irony, your very act of choosing all-raw veganism, instead of bringing you closer to the other animals, dramatizes the degree to which we are different from them. The dog is a carnivore. Has any dog ever become a vegetarian? Has any wolf or tiger ever done so? The sheer variety of human diets, and the sheer diversity from one person to another in terms of taste and attitudes towards food, indicates that.

Secondly, we are not the only species to drink the "secretions" of other animals. Aphids secrete something called "honeydew" rather as a spider secretes his web. Ants colonise aphids and eat their honeydew. And come to think of it, the ant, as a social and political animal, shares some other things in common with us as well.

Besides, every species of being is unique in some way. Most plants derive their nutrition from photosynthesis. The Venus fly-trap, on the other hand, eats insects: here we have the spectacle of a carnivorous plant. Are there dissident Venus fly-traps out their, arms akimbo, declaring that "no other species of plant eats animals! It just doesn't seem natural to me!"

Your remark about no other animal cooking his food reminded me of something I'd read only days before first reading this discussion. Henry Bieler wrote:

"The simplest rules to remember are that man and herbivorous animals must cook their vegetables in order to break down the cellulose box in which the vegetable cell is stored. Man uses heat; herbivorous animals use fermentation, for which they have seperate stomachs."

He was not against eating raw food; in fact he goes on to say:

"...But to man, raw vegetables are also of great value, mainly for bulk and roughage as well as to keep the intestinal contents from becoming too dry...."

In other words, cooked vegetables for nutrients, and raw ones for roughage. In fact there are many vegetables that are better for us cooked than raw. Most of the nightshades, like eggplants and potatoes and bell peppers, actually have mild irritants that harm us in large enough quantities if eaten raw, but which disappear when they are cooked. I love raw tomatoes in a salad, but cooked tomatoes have some health-giving properties that raw tomatoes just don't have. Some things, like cassava root and taro, are outright fatal poisons in their raw state, but become harmless, and are the staple starches of whole cultures, when cooked. It is true that boiling vegetables makes them lose nutrients, but also anti-nutrients: spinach, for example, contains oxalic acid which blocks calcium absorption, so that it is better for us when cooked.

Sally Fallon devotes two pages of her book Nourishing Traditions to the praise of raw foods (she is, however, mostly talking about raw meat, dairy, and fish) but then concludes with the following:

"While we should include a variety of raw foods in our diets, we need to recognize that there are no traditional diets composed exclusively of raw foods. Even in the tropics, where fires are not needed for warmth, the inhabitants build a fire every day to cook their foods. Some nutrients are made more available through cooking and cooking also neutralizes naturally occurring toxins in plant foods. In general, grains, legumes, and and certain types of vegetables should be cooked."

Notice the implications for your theory that man only began cooking his food when living in cold climates forced him to build fires and thaw out frozen stuff. On the contrary, it is in the far north that we get lots of raw food being eaten: in the tropics raw food is too likely to contain parasites.

I would also like to point out that the typical behavior of "rawists" that I know is no more "natural" or "animal-like" than cooking is. They mix ten different things together, they put things in blenders and puree them, they grind things into powder, they sprout things and dehydrate things to produce different textures. You indicate doing some such things yourself. What if I pointed out to you that no animal uses a blender or grinds nuts into butter?

You yourself say that cooked food "tastes great". For me our natural instincts are a reliable guide in choosing a healthy diet. In other words, a universe in which it was natural for us to crave roasted meats and chicken soup, but unnatural for us actually to eat such things, does not resemble the one I personally inhabit. The foods we "evolved" to eat are the ones we naturally want to eat.

You seem to grant the same authority to our instincts, for you write:

"How can returning to natural eating be a fad when it's what your body evolved to ingest? i'm talking before fire.. berry pickers, gatherers. does anyone really look at a chicken walking on the grass and get the urge to tear into it with their teeth? i don't think so. doesn't make sense. that's all i'm saying."

Two things leap to mind here. First, I burst out laughing when I saw our paleolithic forefathers described as "berry pickers, gatherers". I think the term happens to be "hunter-gatherers", and the "hunter" half of the word is in there for a reason. The image of the caveman as a delicate vegan nicely picking strawberries was a really amusing one. More importantly, your argument from our urges is falsely loaded. I could just as easily say:

"Do you look at raw brussels sprouts and get an urge to tear into them with your teeth? Raw sweet potatoes? Raw rice? I don't think so. doesn't make sense. that's all i'm saying."

When I think of what we get an urge to tear into with out teeth, a roast chicken comes to mind, or a steak tartare, or some steaming hot cooked sweet potatoes with lots of butter, or rice that has been cooked.

But I'd like to move past all of these quibbles to some larger points. Again, for me the long traditions of mankind are a powerful argument; what just doesn't make sense to me is that a mistake would somehow become universal and nobody would figure that out until our time. Gaku Homma's "Folk Art of Japanese Country Cooking" is one of my very favorite cookbooks. In it, he points out that for more than a thousand years no Japanese person ate a raw vegetable. The folk religious reason was that vegetables were believed to contain bad spirits (angry because the vegetable had been cut) which needed to be "cooked out"; the health reason was that in fact they contain parasites. When salad was popularized during the American occupation it was considered a shocking thing, and even today you will not find many salads in China. (One book about Chinese eating habits actually contains a chapter called "Only Barbarians eat Salad.") What the Japanese did have was Ohitashi: minimallly cooked vegetables. Spinach would be boiled for thirty seconds, for example. That combines, in a way, the best of both worlds.

It seems to me specious to argue from some vague fantasy of primitive man (even leaving aside, for a moment, the fact that the caveman was a carnivore) and then ignore all the thousands of years of actual people that we actually know about.

To sum up, I think what we have in common is that we both believe that mankind took a terrible wrong turn at some point and abandoned nature. I think that wrong turn happened in the modern era when we replaced real food with junk. You think it took place in the paleolithic when we gave up "berry-picking" for fire. (But to use your own type of argment for a moment: if an animal had made such a mistake--if tigers began eating grass, fro example--do you think they would thrive for thousands of years on it?)

Anyway, if you are happy and healthy in your diet, more power to you and good luck. But should the time come when you become dissatisfied, should you begin to crave something cooked and warm, or feel undernourished, you don't have to throw out the baby with the bathwater and go back to the standard american diet. If that time comes, you might want to look at Nourishing Traditions by Sally Fallon and Mary Enig, or Full Moon Feast by Jessica Prentice; they are both great books by people who have given a lot of thought to these questions.

I wouldn't say I'm Vegan, but I have used some of the basic principles to become more healthy.

Years ago I stopped using processed sugars. I haven't bought sugar and brought it into my home in a very long time. That doesn't mean that I don't ingest it when I go out to eat as it is difficult to control unless you want to eat at home all the time. As a substitute I use Agave nectar. It's great. It takes some experimentation to learn how to bake with it, but once you do it makes a difference.

Last year (May 08) I stopped buying meat when grocery shopping. There hasn't been any pork, beef or poultry in my fridge in over a year. This just means I don't cook with it at home. I still do eat meat, but I primarily only do this when I'm out with friends and family. I don't want to become that person that everyone has to accommodate when choosing restaurants because of dietary restrictions. Also, I do like the taste of meat, so I want to keep my digestive system "in shape" to digest it. If you stay off meat for a substantial time you can get severe cramps if you ingest it again -- even if it is something as simple as rice cooked in chicken broth.

My diet at home is an equal mix of cooked and raw vegetables. At first I thought it would be quite boring, but I've learned to be creative and I haven't been bored at all. It also helps that I have enough business meetings in any given month that have me eating out. When I do eat out and order meat I'll get dishes with meat in them -- not dishes where meat is the focus like a huge steak or half a chicken. Lately, more often than not I'm ordering fish.

I think the single most important change that I made was to cut out ALL wheat gluten. This does not mean I cut out carbs. I still eat potatoes, rice and corn -- but all wheat is out of my diet as much as possible. I also cut back on my dairy consumption.

The results? My chronic lower back pain went away. The aches and pains in my joints went away. I sleep better, and I took off about 30 lbs over one year. I feel healthier and look healthier.

Something interesting to note: A friend of mine is doing research on the "organic" craze. So far the findings are that going organic has no health benefits. There is no proof that eating organic makes you healthier or live longer. In fact, the only benefits of going organic are that they reduce your carbon footprint. So if you're environmentally conscious it's good thing to go organic. But as of now, with the research available, there seem to be no health benefits to going organic. This may change as time goes on.